BarcelonaLuis Enrique Martínez, Ernesto Valverde and Joan Laporta testified this Friday as witnesses in the investigation of the Negreira case. The two former Barça coaches have assured – by video call – that they were unaware of the existence of the reports of the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) and his son. A service that they would have offered to Valverde at Athletic. On the other hand, Joan Laporta – acquitted of the case, as the acts of his first mandate (2003-2010) prescribed – has admitted in court that they found these reports “by chance in some boxes in the back of a cupboard”, as revealed by SER Catalunya. However, only a few were found, because every five or six years, as President Culer has said, part of the club’s documentation is destroyed.
Laporta, who has left the City of Justice without making any public statement, has also explained that when he took office in 2003, he did not know about the existence of the reports – which were started with Josep Lluís Núñez and Joan Gaspart – and when he found out, the sports commission explained to him that they were useful and worth keeping. In addition, the payment of the reports – “a few hundreds of thousands of euros per year” – did not have to be approved by the board, as it did not exceed the minimum amount established. Laporta added that he did not personally know either José María Enríquez Negreira or his son Javier, who would allegedly have drawn up the arbitration reports. The Barcelona manager has denied that the club was benefited by the referees, as the team they had at the time was “an example to the world”.
Awaiting Barça’s statement
The Negreira case is going to uncover the SER program What are you playing with? and investigates the payment of more than seven million euros to José María Enríquez Negreira and his son between 2001 and 2018. Last September, former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu declared as being investigated and both assured that the payments had been inherited from the previous boards of directors – as Laporta has done this morning. Bartomeu admitted on his way out of the City of Justice that they were paid for “sports advisory services and pre- and post-match arbitration reports for both Barça and Barça Atlètic”. At the beginning of 2026, the current spokesperson of the club, Elena Fort, representing Barça as a legal entity, and Joan Gaspart, former president of the club between 2000 and 2003, will testify.
